The Satyam scandal has helped to bare more cases of professional misconduct by chartered accountants of auditor firms Pricewaterhouse Coopers and its partners, including Lovelock and Lewis.

Five years after the collapse of Global Trust Bank, the disciplinary committee of the ICAI has found that two auditors of  Price Waterhouse partners in India and one auditor of PWC itself were involved in ''professional misconduct''in the Global Trust Bank case as well.

PWC's Gopalakrishnan, who was involved in the Satyam case, has been found guilty of professional misconduct in the Global Trust Bank case by the disciplinary committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

 The other two auditors, who have been found guilty by the committee in the GTB case, are Price Waterhouse partner P Ramakrishna and Lovelock & Lewes employee Manish Agarwal, reports quoted ICAI president Uttam Agarwal as saying.

ICAI will discuss the disciplinary committee report at its council meeting in March, the ICAI chief said on Monday, adding that punitive action will be taken against the erring auditors depending upon the gravity of their offenses.

The disciplinary committee had given the findings to ICAI in the GTB case relating to three financial years from 2000-01 to 2002-03.

The Reserve Bank of India had complained to ICAI in 2004 after finding differences in GTB's financial statements. But, the ICAI is yet to conduct a final investigation into the GTB case for the three years under review, 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2002-03.

While Lovelock & Lewes did the audit in the first two years,  PriceWaterhouseCoopers was the audit firm in the third year.

The auditors had underprovided for non-performing assets in the balance sheet of the Hyderabad-based GTB which was merged with the Delhi-based Oriental Bank of Commerce in 2004.

Lovelock & Lewes is a member firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which is also being investigated for its role in the Satyam fraud.